


The Lady of Winterfell

by Robb Stark (RyloKen)



Series: Fates Design [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, Catelyn Keeping Secrets, Catelyn Made A Mistake, Direwolves Are Like Horses, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Forbidden Love, Grey Wind & Hoarfrost, It Hurt To Write That Shit, Jon & Catelyn Have Something In Common, Jon Snow Knows Something, Mentions of the Threat of Rape, POV Catelyn Stark, Red Wedding, Secret Marriage, Secrets, Slightly Altered Timeline, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, The Old Gods (ASoIaF), Twincest, but it's mild i swear, eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 17:53:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17166551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyloKen/pseuds/Robb%20Stark
Summary: It was a night of wars when she gave birth to the heirs of Winterfell.A son, with a tuft of auburn hair atop his head and eyes that spoke of half a hundred tales not yet known to him, and a daughter, with a head full of black hair and eyes that shone like blue stars.They were half of her, half of a man she was never meant to marry.Tully and Stark.Trout and Wolf.She held them, and watched them slip into sleep together, gone from her sight where they were one within dreams she would never know they shared.She held them, and as they slept, she named them.Robb and Rowana.She loved them and protected them, and she swore to do everything in her power to keep them safe and together, but she could not have known what the gods had in store for her little wolves.Just as she could not have known what her interference would cost them.





	The Lady of Winterfell

 

 ༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 _"I am a mother._  
_If it is my fate to die for my children then I will accept it with a smile on my face,_  
_for the gods know there is no price I would not pay to see my sons and daughters safe."_

_[Bound To Eternity - Gothic Storm](https://youtu.be/hcvdqyHHt5k) _

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It was a night of wars.

The skies were thick with storm clouds, aglow with lightning and alive with the rumbling crash of thunder too close for comfort. Every once in a while, she was sure the castle shook with the force of each terrifying boom.

Rain drowned the lands, fields turned to mud within moments of the downpour as rivers swelled and overtook the rocky banks.

The gods were either very excited or very angry, she thought, and succumbed to a new wave of pain.

As the thunder rumbled onwards overhead, the pain seeped through her muscles and into her bones before leaving her.

It would return soon enough.

Men, as the skies did, waged their own war, and as the clouds spilled rain, blades spilled blood until the lands were stained with it. How many bodies were left behind, littered across Westeros and left to the birds and the beasts that stalked the shadows of battle?

Her husband fought with blade and honour, with grief in his heart for the loss of his brother, the loss of his father.

He had done his duty by her, by their families, by what was right and honourable and had done for her what his brother no longer could.

Eddard Stark had not been meant for her, and yet had taken to her side with cloak and promise, and had taken to her bed as Brandon was meant to.

 _Oh, Brandon_ , she thought with a different kind of pain to the one tearing her insides to shreds.

War was waged by the gods and men, and all the while she waged her own war, one with no less blood or pain or fear, but one only a woman could.

Lightning lit up the chamber she laboured in, lit up the sweat upon her brow, the pain that glowed in her eyes; she cried out as thunder took to grumbling, and shook as the fear and the pain grew inside her.

Would her husband live to see his child born?

Would she?

For hours she had lain abed, paling with each new strum of ache within her, and hours more she remained until long moments had lessened to languishing heartbeats.

Wars of gods and men would go on, she knew, but hers was reaching its end, drawing to its close.

She heard nothing but her own blood flowing in her ears, her own cries as she turned her knuckles white with the grip she held on the sheets beneath her, and _pushed_.

Blood and fear and pain and a bone-deep understanding that she could very well lose her war, slipped away at the first breath drawn into new lungs.

Blood and fear and pain were nothing in the face of such small cries, cries that grew and silenced the storm.

She wept, exhaustion and elation a whirlwind inside of her as the midwife lifted her small child from between her legs and moved for the side of the bed, wiping blood and fluid from rapidly reddening skin.

She wept, and then she sucked in a breath and held it as everything about her faded to black as the little babe, new and so, so small, was placed in her arms.

The midwife spoke then, words gentle and kind but she heard none of them, so lost in the bright blue eyes of the babe wiggling against her chest.

A son.

An heir.

Tears rimmed her tired eyes as she stared down at him, her tiny little boy, pink-faced and squalling. He cried, lungs full of a song of sorrow, a song of longing, one such a small thing should not have cause to sing.

Why was he so sad?

Why did he cry so?

The wars waged by gods and men were nothing to what she felt as she held him, as she listened to him wail and mourn.

Love and fear coiled together in her belly, and then turned to a rippling wave of pain that left her breathless.

Her son was taken from her, despite the way she called for him, begged for him, demanded that her little boy be returned to her arms immediately.

On he screamed, and on she cried, and on the pain came with more blood and sweat and tears.

On he screamed, until storm and cries were lost to the sound of gentle snuffling.

He calmed then, instantly soothed, and the sorrow left him, the sadness gone from his song.

Son was once again placed at her breast and there he waited, quiet and calm, for the moment when her second was placed beside him.

She stared, awed by what she had created with a man she’d known but a handful of moments.

A son, with a tuft of auburn hair atop his head and eyes that spoke of half a hundred tales not yet known to him.

And a daughter, with a head full of black hair and eyes that shone like blue stars.

Blue, as the skies at midday.

Blue, as the rivers that surrounded the very castle walls she had grown up in and rested in even then.

They were small in her arms, so, so small, but their eyes were large and bright and captivatingly beautiful.

How many hearts would they break when they were grown, she wondered.

They were half of her, half of a man she was never meant to marry.

Tully and Stark.

Trout and Wolf.

She held them, her gifts for winning her war, her gifts from the gods, old and new.

She held them, and smiled tiredly as son whimpered and waved his little arms, and calmed a moment later when sister cooed and flailed in kind.

Their little hands touched, for just a breath, and a wave of something she could not name washed over her, sunk into her breast and held there beneath her heart.

She felt as if she should look away, as if she were intruding on some sacred thing meant only for them.

The moment passed, there one instant and gone the next.

She held them, watched them, and supped them at her breasts when hunger drew them from their gentle dozing.

How tiring it must be to be born anew.

She held them, and smiled, and when they had drunk their fill, she watched them slip into sleep together, gone from her sight where they were one within dreams she would never know they shared.

She held them, and as they slept, she named them.

Robb and Rowana.

Her little wolves.

 

 

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The war had been over for several weeks now, and yet, now that it was done, now that her life could truly start, she felt no hope.

Winterfell was not what she had thought it would be.

Cold, yes, and harsh, but not the horrible wasteland she had been led to believe it was.

There was a beauty in the snow, in the woods, even in the grey of the walls that flowed with water from a spring deep beneath her new home.

There was warmth there, in the stones and in the people; they were kind without reason, and welcoming once one moved passed the look of them.

Cold on the outside, but so very warm within.

They helped and they cared, they showed her their ways and never sneered when she struggled; they praised their old gods when they had first laid eyes upon her children, northern heirs and so, so beautiful.

_They’ve the blood of wolves in them, Lady Stark, and the favour of the gods._

She hadn’t known what to say to all that, but she’d been proud.

But what pride she’d felt in her twins, her beautiful twins, was dashed upon grey stones and northern snows when her husband returned from war with a babe swaddled in his arms.

Was she not enough?

Was a life with her at his side so offensive that he had sought comfort in the arms of another not long from her marriage bed?

She had not understood, and she had not wanted to.

She did not know what was worse, that he had lain with another and begotten a son, that he had thought to bring that son home with him, or that the son himself was so much more Stark than her little auburn-haired heir was.

Did he notice?

Did it eat at him to see his heir was more fish than wolf?

She hated him; always fleetingly but with such a force she feared she might break apart altogether and leave her little ones alone.

Jon Snow, a bastard bedded beside her babies.

She knew shame then, in those moments she stood over that crib of sturdy dark wood embossed with howling wolves and jumping trouts.

She was a woman grown, a young mother, and yet she could not bring herself to do what her little wolves could; she could not love a motherless child.

Weeks old and already they shamed her.

Weeks old and already they did what she could not.

They were her wonder.

They were her hope.

And as they grew, they continued to love the babe placed at their side.

She thought, as the moons took to the skies to glow and passed the nights into weeks, that she would learn to love him, that dark haired boy who clutched at her little Rowana as if she were his only tether to this world and as if he meant to protect her from all the darkness beyond their little room.

She never learned, but the shame of such a horrible thing faded and turned to dust when a new shame, a secret shame, took its place and settled in to fester.

Her little wolves were growing so fast, so strong and true already.

Her little Robb, with his auburn curls and his blue, blue eyes, was Tully in colouring alone, and was slowly, so very slowly, growing to share a likeness with his father.

She held hope that one day, _please gods_ , her little Robb would be the Stark her husband saw when he looked at his bastard.

When he looked at their daughter.

There was always so much pride in his eyes when he looked at their twins, and it was a silent relief that he did not scorn them, that he did not favour his bastard over the ones she had laboured hours alone to give him.

No, when he looked at his heir, he showed only pride.

And when he looked at his little Rowana, his eyes swam with tears of joy and love, and tears that stung of sorrow.

She knew not how to feel then, when he cradled his little girl to his chest and wept into the dark of her rapidly growing hair.

Did he hate her, the little Rowana Stark with her raven-locks and her startling blue eyes, for reminding him so of the sister he had lost not so long ago?

He couldn’t, she knew; there could be no hate from a man who cradled his girl so gently yet so tightly, as if he swore silent oaths every time he held her that he would sink any foe that rose against her.

But if he knew the truth, if he saw what she had seen, would that change?

Would he hold them so close if he knew the secret his wife kept from him, a secret that spoke of forbidden things and answered just as many questions as it posed?

She had not believed it herself when she had seen it first, had tried to convince herself that she saw wrong, remembered wrong, read wrong, but no, no she was right, and she was thankful that she was the one to bathe her little wolves.

What would the North think were they to see the little words hidden by hairline and locks?

What would the North think were they to know the heirs of Winterfell were marked by fates design?

She was too afraid to ask of their tales, too afraid to seek understanding from a people she did not truly know.

Would they shun them, her babies?

Would they toss them into the snows to freeze?

Would they throw them atop a pyre to burn that their fated sins might be purged from the north?

She wept to think so, feared it, and took to their sides with claw and tooth, a shield to protect them from any that would seek the truth to harm them.

Why had the gods cursed them?

Were they to pay the price for her mistakes, for her inability to love her husband’s bastard?

A cruel thing to impose upon two so young, two who shared blood, had shared a womb!

She championed them, kept their secret safe, and it was years before anyone knew of the names hidden beneath hairline and locks, names that spoke of an entwisted fate, linked and paved already before them.

Names of mates.

Names of fate.

Names that were each other’s.

 

 

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She knew not how to feel that it was the bastard who found out her secret first.

So many years she had guarded such a truth, kept it hidden and lost beneath black and auburn hair alike.

She spoke of it to no one, not even her husband, no matter that they had grown close, no matter that they now had another little girl to dote upon.

Her fire-haired little darling was a welcome distraction to the lie she was keeping, and as the months seeped by, she learned to hide her mind, learned to be as the Northman about her; cold on the outside but warmed all the way through.

Attention shifted from her growing twins to the babe she swaddled close and carried with her everywhere.

Sansa Stark was a pretty baby, but so, so quick to fuss.

It made it difficult to track her twins, already so prone to adventuring beyond her sight, wooden swords in hand and a bastard at their sides.

There wasn’t a moment that passed when Robb and Rowana Stark weren’t found lost in whispers with a boy they saw as theirs, a boy they kept close and adored as if he were a third piece and had grown in her womb right beside them.

It heated hatred in her as much as it fed the shame she’d long given up trying to be rid of.

Jon Snow was as enamoured by her twins as they were of him.

She should have known, she should have seen it; that the boy who defended her little Rowana as much as she herself did, would see the marks beneath her growing mane of ruby-hued black.

He’d held no disgust in his voice when he’d smiled and touched the letters and stuttered over them.

He’d struggled to form the right sounds, but he’d said enough to rouse his half-brother from his imaginings and to his side.

And oh, how pleased her little auburn-haired wolf had been to see his name upon his sister, scripted in a print he would not be able to write himself for many years to come.

He had touched her then, with awe and pride and a smug satisfaction on his face, and had stated, with so much surety in his tone for such a boy so small, that it was proof that she was his.

And she had watched, with fear mounting as a great wave within her breast, as her little boy, her little Robb, had curled his arms around his sisters’ neck and kissed her firmly on the mouth.

They were too small to know what they had done, too small to comprehend the fate they had sealed, the fate they had accepted.

The gods were cruel to do such a thing, and she feared what would come now that their design was tied, their path set to.

What of their future now they were bound together, bound and linked and damned to be drawn to the other for every day that led them to their graves?

She feared, then, that they would succumb, as she feared what the north would think when they did so.

Her hatred for the bastard spirited into her life grew and overshadowed all the small good she had tried to feel for him; unknowingly, innocently, he had damned them, and she would never forgive him for it.

Jon Snow had set in stone the very fate she had tried so hard to steer her babies from.

But maybe, just maybe, he was meant to.

Would he champion them as she had when he understood the truth of that which he had uncovered and set in motion?

Would he hate them, turn from them, fight them, or would he stand by them and continue to love them as he so clearly did?

Perhaps, she mused as she watched him, that bastard boy, as he cuddled close to his half-siblings, he was meant to find them and guard them.

Perhaps, she mused, he was to be their champion when she could not be.

She would never love him, but maybe, just maybe, she could grow to trust him with that which she held most dear.

 

 

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They were only seven when first she stumbled upon them rosy cheeked and locked-lips.

At first, so stunned by it all, she had not comprehended what she had seen, but like a dip in a cold stream, it came to her, an understanding that their path was shifting.

It was an innocent enough kiss, one that could have been brushed aside as an infantile curiosity were it not for the secret she kept, the fate she knew was theirs.

She watched, with mounting terror, as her Robb, her little boy, laced his fingers with his twin’s and leaned in to steal a kiss and set heat blooming beneath her pale skin.

There was beauty in the horror of it, something sweet, something that warmed her heart as it iced over and stilled its thrumming.

He was gentle, and just as red in the cheeks as she, and were it not for the blood they shared, the womb they’d quickened within together, one would not even take a second glance, let alone fret over such things.

But fret she did as she lingered, eyes locked upon them as they broke apart and giggled together as if they knew something no one else did, as if they had shared some secret through the touching of their lips.

She felt her breath hitch when he touched her, a gentle caress of fingers across cheekbone and into hair that shone ever so slightly red in the sunshine until they paused to stroke the line of his name hidden away from all others.

The blush of little Rowana’s cheeks deepened, and her giggle grew until it echoed through the clearing of the Godswood.

A breeze blew through the red leaves above them, sent half a dozen or so dancing about them in what could only be acceptance.

Were the old gods pleased then, by a kiss shared between the twins of Winterfell?

She tried to settle the nerves that coiled in her belly, tried to push everything but amusement down as the moment turned from affection to play and her little wolves took to dancing with the whirling red of fallen leaves.

They knew nothing of the darkness they were wandering into, nothing of the shadows that crept upon them, the beasts that grew closer and were always, always, ready to bay for their blood.

They were innocent, sweet and gentle, and the kiss was, thankfully, seen only by mother and gods and the crow that watched on from his perch within the heart tree’s limbs.

 

 

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She had lost count of how may kisses they had stolen since the first.

Was it half a hundred? Half a thousand?

She mused that she would never know for sure for a day never seemed to pass when she did not round a corner and find them locked in an embrace with their lips pressed close and dancing.

The fear had left her now, for the designs of gods, but it lingered for the hatred of men, for the disgust that would come were they to be found.

She feared that the most, and often times laid awake at night fretting of the day some lord or lady came to share words with her lord husband and tear down all the walls she had spent their little lives building.

It helped them not at all that they seemed oblivious to the danger, that they cared not a whit for the possibility of being caught, or for the possibility that what they were doing would cause untold strife.

Youth, she often sighed, was as much a gift as it was a curse.

How were they to know when they spent so much time wrapped up in each other?

How were they to know when mother and bastard alike kept away the dark as best they could?

Years she had spent with the bastard in her home, and years she had spent hating herself for never being able to love him.

Even now, when so many times he had saved her precious babies from discovery, she could not love him.

She had long accepted that she never would, and tried only to limit the times her scorn for him was so openly noticed.

He remained true to his path, to his silent oath, and for that she was grateful.

The kisses, however, neither stopped nor slowed, and never lessened in intensity.

The years passed and as her attentions were taken away from her firsts and directed to each new babe she bore, her twins grew closer and for it, their path grew more entwined.

There was not a Northman in Winterfell who could claim the twins were not close, were not something of a mystery.

For as blind as they were to the dangers lurking in the shadows, they knew things, saw things, whispered things into the furs they camped beneath on stormy nights.

No one suspected a thing, but she knew, the kissing was only the beginning.

And she was right, as she knew she would be from the second she first saw those damned marks.

They were ten and three when kisses became touches, though for all she knew they had started sooner and she had simply been too blind to see.

Was this her curse? To watch her babies slipping slowly into a life of lust and ruin?

Gone was the innocence of her Robb’s gazes, the blue of his bright eyes turned to raging seas whenever he looked upon his other half.

She was not the only one to notice the way he tracked her, the way he gripped her hands whenever he was near enough to do so, and the way he gripped whatever he could when she was far enough away to gain another’s attention.

There was possession in his heated stares, a want that burned too brightly for someone so young.

How many times would she tend the scrapes upon his knuckles from fights started in his sister’s name?

How many apologies would she give to parents of sons he had hit for daring to speak to his Rowana, let alone flirt with her?

She knew not what was worse, that he so openly defended from such a young age, or that her little Rowana seemingly revelled in it.

They were no longer her pups but growing wolves, their claws were sharpening, their fangs long and ready to sup the blood of enemies.

She feared what war would do to them, were it ever to break.

There was something disconcerting that the only one who understood her fear was the bastard boy she’d spent his entire life looking down on.

Jon Snow saw what she saw and understood far more than he should; they were growing to become dangerous and damned was the one who came between them.

 

 

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Her little Rickon was but a tot barely onto his stumbling feet when she learned a new truth.

She had not seen it, had not noticed, but she should have.

She had stirred something inside of them, had set a flame to burn beneath a want that had not surfaced.

The touching had grown, no longer searching, testing, but tried and true and set to send high.

They knew each other in a way she could not comprehend, knew where to touch, when and how; she tried not to think about just how often they must have done so to know such things.

Years she’d been married to their father, her darling Ned, and even still she was still learning him as he was learning her.

Would they ever know half so much as their little wolves, she mused often, and just as often sighed in defeat for the answer was obvious.

No, they would not, and she doubted anyone else ever would either.

There was something ethereal about the bond they shared, something tied to the marks that guided them onwards.

They never stumbled, never seemed to fear or doubt or hesitate; they were one, a single soul within two bodies.

Still, when first she stumbled upon them hidden away in a dark corner of Winterfell with their clothing skewed and their breaths shared, she had not suspected that they could know how to do such things without ever having been told or shown.

She had stared, that first time, surprised enough not to turn away or tear them apart.

There was a certain level of beauty to the way they moved, to the way her auburn-haired boy lapped at the pale skin of his sister’s throat, to the way he caressed between her thighs and sent her soaring as she in turn stroked the length of him with practiced fingers.

It was not something she was meant to see or watch, not something for her; and had she not felt the same when they had rested as babes in her arms, when first their hands had touched outside of her womb?

This was sacred, a moment shared between those touched by the gods, old or new or both, she wasn’t sure.

She had turned and fled and had pushed the echo of their ascent from her mind.

Like she had with their kissing, she soon lost track of the times she found them indecent, locked in their own world and their own pleasures.

She no longer gawked, no longer stopped and stared; she was growing immune to it, no longer shocked to know the reality of what she’d always known would happen.

Hope was a fickle thing.

And what little hope she had that touching was the furthest it would go was dashed when her Rowana, her beautiful wolf, had first held little Rickon.

There was nothing insidious with how she held him, with how she smiled at him, with how she carried him close to her breast and sang him songs of knights and wolves and tall, tall towers.

No, nothing insidious, but there was heat in the way Robb watched her, in the way he walked beside her, little Rickon held between them.

She should have known, that when they were old enough to truly know the risks, that they would leap right into the deep end together.

She hadn’t thought them so far gone, so far ahead of her own guesses.

She had been wrong to assume they would slow down, would take the time to savour their youth, to savour even their stolen moments in shadows and darkened rooms.

No, she was wrong to assume anything when it came to her twins.

No, she was wrong to assume the bastard boy she shared this, and only this, with was lying.

Had he not warned her of the words they’d shared before heart tree and gods?

Had he not warned her of grown up smiles on youthful faces, of a cloak of grey atop maiden shoulders?

Had he not warned her of his suspicions?

He had, and like his existence, she had ignored him as best she could.

It had been her mistake, for that very night, when returning to her chambers after ferrying Rickon into the land of dreams, she learned the truth of his warning.

Words before heart tree, cloak atop maiden shoulders, smiles and kisses and the looks they’d shared over supper – she should have believed him.

But she had not, and there, standing not a foot from her auburn-haired wolf’s room, she listened to the sound of him becoming a man.

Hope, her double-edged sword, had her believing that maybe, _maybe_ , it was some other girl he had taken to bed, some other girl he had chosen to lay with.

She knew, in the very deepest part of her soul, that she was a fool to have hope, but still she held onto it, to the belief that not even they would take this step.

But like so many hopes before, it was dashed upon the grey stones and the northern snows with one whisper, with one moan, with one howl to a moon that shone so brightly that night.

_Rowana._

They were no longer her little wolves, she knew, and were one step closer to ruin.

 

 

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How was she to know the price to pay when stag kings and lion queens tempted grey stone and northern snow?

How was she to know warriors gone to ruin would demand such things of men whom had already given so much?

Was her husband not enough?

He sought to tear her family asunder, sought to tempt the flame as much the cold.

She had felt her blood run cold when king had made to touch her sweet girl, her beautiful Rowana.

He had whispered another name, the name of one lost to history, lost in a war he’d waged; he did not see Rowana, but the aunt to whom she owed her likeness.

Was she truly so very like the flighty wolf lost to dragons and time?

King, a stag, had very nearly lost his hand for such a slight, for such a presumption; had she not seen the darkening of the blue in her sons’ eyes, had she not seen the storm growing within him at the gall of a man whose wife stood golden and sneering not twenty paces away?

She feared then, truly feared, that he would strike, that he would fight as he had so many times before; with fang and claw and the wolf that howled for blood in his veins.

She feared then, truly feared, that her secret would fly apart and show her for a liar, for a witch, for a craven.

How could she keep such a thing from her children?

How could she keep such a thing from her husband?

How was it that she trusted the bastard with her secret but not her husband or her blood?

He was gone, however, his meaty paw swept away from pale skin not his to dare touch, before wolf could strike and spill the blood of stag.

She felt no relief, felt no lessening to the fear that gripped her and threatened to drag her under to drown in the depths.

He might have just touched her, had he known his demand would cause such a stir.

Her Rowana, her beautiful wolf; he wanted her to marry his golden-haired boy, his heir, the prince.

She thanked all the gods there were to thank that her husband had deemed it imperative to consult her on such things.

Her girl, her first born girl, married to such a _boy_.

How could she dissuade such an option, how could she turn her husband’s mind from such a union without revealing that wolf would never lay with stag for she lay already with wolf?

How could she stop a war from erupting right there in Winterfell without telling him that the gods, old or new or both, had seen fit to tie their fates together?

How could she stop it without showing herself a liar, without showing the truth of just how far down their path they had chosen to walk?

How could she tell her husband that their beautiful Rowana could not marry the prince because she was already married to her brother?

How cruel the gods were to weigh her down with such things, with such secrets, with such truths.

She was a woman torn, a mother afraid of what would happen to her little ones, no matter that they were no longer so little.

She could not have known, despite her heavy heart, what havoc her choice would make.

The gods never answered her prayers, her pleas for forgiveness; nor did they offer her guidance.

And so, without their aid or wisdom, she offered up her second girl and hoped it was the right choice.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

She cursed the day King Robert had dragged his fat arse and his golden whore north.

How had she the grace not to murder them in their sleep?

How had she the strength not to burn the whole of fucking Winterfell to the ground if it meant trapping them in the flames?

Her little boy, her baby boy; Bran was not waking, was not hearing her words or her pleas.

Day after day, he slept on, silent and still and so, so pale.

 _He fell_ , they told her, over and over as if there were so many different meanings to one simple word.

Her son, despite her fear, was as sure footed as they came; he did _not_ fall.

They came to her, into his room, with their sad eyes and their sad words, and she wanted to bite and scratch them all, to scream at them to get the fuck away from her sweet boy and to go back to the cesspool they ruled from.

Politeness ingrained in her from the time she was old enough for it to stick, kept her from sneering at the golden queen’s tale of woe.

Did she think herself so sincere?

Did she think herself so kind?

And him, that king with his breath of wine and his glassy eyes and his mournful words of apology; did he truly think she cared one whit for his platitudes, for his courtesies?

She wanted to claw his eyes out and feed them to her son’s wolf.

How dare they, how dare they come to her home and tear her world to pieces.

Was one Stark not enough for Robert fucking Baratheon?

Was one dead Stark not enough for him?

He had taken more than his due and had sought to take more.

Her husband, her darling Ned; gentle and kind and honourable despite the contrary darkening her doorstop.

Her daughter, her sweet Sansa, gone off to marry a prince; and while she herself felt guilt for offering her up as sacrifice to save her beautiful Rowana, Sansa, sweet Sansa, saw nothing of the deception and skipped willingly into the belly of the beast with her eyes wide and her smile broad.

_Gods, please, watch over my little girl and see her safely through this._

Arya, her wild little wolf, Stark from head to toe and all the way through; would her wildness save her or would it see her chained and caged and put on display for the lords and ladies of the fancy southern court to sneer at?

And her Bran, her baby boy, destined for the south but now left abed with legs he would never feel again; he would never walk again, let alone climb, and she knew he would be heart broken.

If he ever woke.

Her heart tripped, and a wail broke through her as she worked her twine about curving branches.

Half her home was leaving her, drawn to the south by a fat man with a circle of golden antlers atop his sweaty brow.

Even the bastard was going, exiled to the Wall by his own sense of honour, his own sense of shame; she had done that to him, pushed him down a path that led only to the desolate northern reaches where the dregs of their society were banished to be forgotten.

Would he have chosen such a place to spend his life had she shown him but an ounce of love?

Why, now that he was leaving, did she feel sorrow?

Should she not feel gladdened by the leaving of his shadow?

Should she not praise the gods for ridding her of his presence and the constant reminder that she had not been enough for her darling Ned?

She felt only grief and the widening of the pit inside of her.

He was not of her womb, but he was hers all the same; not her son, not her boy, but her champion, her guardian, the protector of a secret only they knew.

That she snarled at him with such vile words…

She longed to go to him, to pull him into her arms and weep her grief into his broadening chest, to apologise for all the hateful things she had said to him all his life.

She longed to thank him for never once betraying her babies, but all she had for him was words that stung and cut and left him just as empty inside as he’d always been.

She felt shame, as she always did, and she allowed it to smother her, to drag at her until she was haggard and torn apart from the inside by a war no one else could see.

Was this her punishment?

The days blurred until the time came when north moved south and ceased to be hers.

King tried to take more, as she suspected he might, and she showed herself then, in her madness, in her grief, and snarled and spat until old wolf caved and fat stag bowed to seething trout and accepted the lot he had.

He would not be tearing her twins apart, he would not be taking her Rowana.

How old Ned had looked, under the onslaught of mother and son; how had he survived such an attack with nary a scratch?

She had raged as a mad thing and Robb, her auburn-haired wolf, had torn a war path through Winterfell with words and threats that no one was stupid enough to ignore.

Not even king had thought to question the validity of Robb Stark’s promises.

And so, it was without beautiful Rowana, that the king took his handful of Starks’ and made his way back home.

She returned to her grieving, to her place by her Bran’s side where he slept on and never moved.

She lost herself in that room, for a time, and the world outside his chamber door ceased to be.

How long had it been since she had left her chair?

How long had it been since she had seen the sun?

It mattered not, when he needed her.

So she stayed and prayed and she begged the gods, old and new, to bring him back to her, to give him back.

They never answered her, and Bran slept on.

She wept and she dozed, she barely ate and time mattered not a whit to her.

They came, her beautiful girl, her auburn-haired wolf; they came and they helped, sat vigil that she might rest, read books of old tales to the brother who slept and the one who clung to their sides in a daze.

She was failing her littlest wolf, her baby Rickon, but grief was a blade that cut away at her and left her feeling naught for anyone but Bran.

And besides, he needed her not at all when he had the twins.

She saw them, with her tired eyes, as they visited and spun their tales for Bran, for Rickon; had they always looked so grown up?

Had they always looked so in love?

It hurt her to see them, to watch them mother her own son because she could not.

They lessened her burden, and they helped.

And Robb, her first boy, her brave boy, came to coax her from her shadows, from the webs she’d wrapped herself within.

It slipped then, time and space and meaning; her eyes were opened not by truth but by fear.

Awake, she fought with a wail in her throat and a fire burning hot in her belly.

The blade cut so deeply, cut to the bone and soaked her gown in blood that shone dark in the candlelight.

Her blood was little spilled compared to what was wrenched from the man, from throat torn open and jugular ripped.

She lost herself then, staring at the body of a man meant to cut her boy down; had she gone mad?

It mattered not at all if she had, she was finally awake.

She moved then, all the days lost to her at once, and forged her path through blood and snow.

They sought to take her boy from her as they had taken so much already.

They sought to cut him where he lay, broken and betrayed, to bleed him as one might a hunted deer.

But he was not a deer, and neither was she.

The gods heard her plans as she weaved them, spoke them, and they saw her on her way as she took to the King’s Road and left behind her twins, hands clasped with fingers linked.

They were ready, she thought, ready to take to their path alone.

She turned to see them, one last time before distance stole them from her view.

Her auburn-haired wolf cut an imposing figure on her horizon, with his hair lit by the sun behind him. His shoulders had broadened, his chest had thickened.

Finally, finally, he was looking as his father did; less a fish and more the wolf she knew him to be.

And Rowana, her beautiful girl with her eyes like blue stars and her full smile; her hair danced upon the breeze, a silky stream of black that shone ever the slightest red when hit by the sun just so.

She was not the slender girl her pretty Sansa was, but a woman grown with hips that flared and a waist that dipped inwards sharply without aid. She would be a mother, she knew, and would carry her own child well.

How many would they have, she mused, and shook the thought from her mind.

Her gaze slipped from brave to beautiful to the littlest wolf of her litter; her Rickon was sad where he clutched at his older sister’s neck, tucked as he was on her wide hip.

Sad, but no longer desperately lost.

She smiled, lifted her hand to wave to them and then turned back to her own path.

They were safe, there in Winterfell with the grey stones and the northern snows.

They were safe, and they were together.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

She had shared too few moments with her darling Ned before she had taken wing from King’s Landing and the nest of vipers that called it home.

She saw nothing of her babies, her little girls left to find their own ways through their youth as their father was bound and shackled by a king who saw fit to drink and whore his way through his rule and right into his grave.

She spent too few moments with him, and knew not that they would be her last.

How could she know?

She made so many mistakes, so many that had too high a price, a price she did not see until it was much too late.

Her anger blinded her, led her astray; she took what wasn’t hers to take, just as the king she’d so loathed had done.

She took, and she saw the madness that had taken her sister, and wondered perhaps if that was how she had looked when she had snarled and spat to save her twins from a life torn apart.

She should not have trusted her sister, and she should not have trusted that justice would be served, that her mistakes would be forgiven.

It was for naught, and her mistake turned the lands red.

She should have known what her folly would wrought, what stealing a Lannister from his freedom would do.

A war was on the rise, and her son, her brave boy, her auburn-haired wolf, was the one fighting it this time.

She went to him, as fast as her horse would carry her, and she found him, ahead of an army of Northmen who had rallied behind his call to march south, to free their lord from beneath the lion’s paw.

He was no longer a boy, no longer green; he was by no means the largest man there, by no means the tallest, but he held the most presence, held the most sway, and she all but crumbled to her knees beneath his new gaze, so familiar and yet entirely unknown to her.

He was more wolf than man, though he would grow to be more so, she would soon see.

She went to him, clung to him as he held her close, and when she pulled away, she bid a moment of his time to speak alone with this new man he had become without her.

They were left alone, given the tent to speak their piece, and she saw, out from under the gazes of lords twice his age, that he was still her boy, her brave boy.

He clung to her, a scared child, when she clutched him to her breast and soothed him.

She knew only a slither of the ache in his heart, and refused to comfort him with platitudes and courtesies.

They both longed for their wolves, for their mates, and now war it seemed was the only way they would ever see them.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

When had her life become so many lies?

One atop another, twisting and tangled and all pulling her down and deep and into a darkness that suffocated and chilled.

She was growing to be too good at it, lying in the face of men who saw her as lesser.

Would they never learn?

Would she?

She spun her half-truths, her falsities, as if she were born to; and perhaps she was.

She had given birth to the gods own chosen, had brought forth twins with marks kept hidden beneath hairline and locks.

She had spent the entirety of their lives protecting them, spinning tales and building invisible walls about them that they might never know the scorn of those who saw them as wrong.

The late lord had not been pleased when she had declined him, had denied him his wolf, his climb to a higher seat of power.

Did he think her so very desperate?

Did he think her so very thick?

Did he think her so very lost to his games that she did not see the claws he sought to stick into her boy, her brave boy, her auburn-haired wolf?

He thought himself cunning, an old man with half a hundred babes to his name and half a hundred more most likely lost to the webbed corners of his decrepit mind.

He thought to take her boy from her as king once had, but she would not allow it.

She would not tear her wolves apart.

And so she sat atop her spinning wheel and took into her fingers the threads of all her lies, and spun some more.

Wolf would never marry a girl of towers and tricks, of dower looks and lesser prospects.

No, her wolf would remain safe to love his own as he was meant, as gods both new and old had fated.

She could not have known the slight her lies would cause, her meagre offerings in place of a wolf turned king.

How could she have known that the north would crown their own, that they would bay for a freedom they had never known in their lifetimes?

How could she know that they would bend the knee to her auburn-haired wolf and name him theirs and that by doing so, had turned the mind of an old man bitter?

He would have no seat within grey stones and northern snows, just as he would have no throne or crown to rest atop a daughter’s furrowed brow.

The King in the North, they cried out that night of fates, the King in the North.

It echoed still within her mind, nights after he had taken to his brow a crown of copper and swords.

She saw, as others she knew had, the second crown, a twisted circlet of copper wolves that raced to meet the blue star held at its middle.

They all questioned without words, their eyes unsure and curious.

She knew they wondered, calculated, guessed.

How could they know their queen was safe in Winterfell with her broken brother and the littlest Stark son?

They knew nothing, and her son saw fit to keep it that way; as did she as lies were her only comfort in those dark moments between battles and dreams turned red with remembered blood caked across her brave boy’s face.

She would keep his secret, as she had for all his life.

She would be his champion, whether he knew it or not.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

There was no pain greater than the one she came to know only days after copper swords and blue stars were turned to crowns for wolves.

They had taken from her, with lies of their own and smiles on their pretty faces.

A golden lion sat trapped within his cage, proud and smirking behind his mask of mud and blood and his own leavings.

A golden lion sat trapped, and for it a wolf fell beneath blade of grey stones and northern snows.

Ice claimed the old wolf, and was lost in turn.

As lost as her pretty Sansa and her wild Arya.

She ached.

She could not breathe.

They bowed to her as she passed them, their own grief so very small compared to the one that dragged her down with so many claws dug deep into her very soul.

Her quiet wolf.

Her mate.

Her darling Ned.

Were the gods so truly cruel as to watch her fall into madness?

Were the gods so truly cruel as to allow such evil to take throne and crown and lands not theirs to take?

She wept, so many tears and sobs and gasps for a breath she could not gain no matter the lungfuls she gulped down.

Was she to suffocate, then?

Was she to face the end with black stars in her eyes and a fading mind?

Her heart was gone from her, as gone from her as her darling Ned.

Misery was her only companion there in the darkness.

But misery, she came to learn, loved company, and company she found in her young wolf, her young king, her brave and auburn-haired wolf.

Misery had its bedfellow, and it festered to something darker, to something blood thirsty and hungry.

It bayed to the moon each night as they fought, as they took to the south with northern steel and northern fury.

And yet, even with the company, her misery was her own.

And yet, even with her misery and her heart gone from her breast, there was always more pain to know.

And she would know it.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

Winterfell had fallen, gone to ash and smoke and sea spray.

She had not known what true pain was until she heard the sounds of it carried on the winds the day of dark wings and dark words.

Fear had settled as a smothering cloud among the camp, a weight they could not see or lift.

They feared their king then, when words from home came south and painted pictures of burning grey stones and salted northern snows.

He was turned to wolf then, grief and fear and rage a maelstrom beneath his armour and furs.

They whispered of the fallen lords, of the bodies of small boys strung from walls of home.

They whispered of the sea come to Winterfell, of a once brother with betrayal in his veins and the trust burned to ash as surely as the north was.

They dared not whisper of the beautiful Rowana, of their king’s sister, of the girl they knew not as their queen but as their lord’s greatest strength, and his greatest weakness.

They did not whisper of her fate, of the sea in place of fire, of the kraken in place of dragon.

Words were left to parchment, scrawled without care and meant to taunt.

_How many Ironborn can a little wolf lady take into her body before her body breaks apart?_

Her brave boy, her young wolf; he lost himself inside the rage, inside the fear, inside the pain.

They painted pictures inside his mind, behind the lids of eyes gone empty of light beyond the flame of war.

They teased with words, with promises; half a hundred raiders learning the taste of a northern lass, half a hundred raiders sinking the salt of the sea into the snows of the north.

The young wolf crumbled, the young wolf turned.

They broke him with tales of her screams, with songs of her hair shorn to the root, of her smiles turned bloody with fist and worse.

They broke him with poems of her body, cut and beaten and supped upon by men of the ocean.

They broke him with the visions of her, swollen with a child not of the north, not of her standing, not worthy of her name; they lamented that she had died before sea salt could seed deep and take.

They broke him, and they turned him to something dark, to something gone from her brave boy; _where did you go, my sweet boy of auburn hair and eyes the blue of the sky?_

They broke him, and in his grief, they remade him.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

They did not understand why their king howled for so much blood, why he let his rage consume him.

They did not understand why their king mourned his sister so, when the loss of his father and brothers and his home seemingly faded to nought but bad dreams.

They did not understand why he lashed out at the advances of pretty girls and prettier women.

They did not understand, and she did not try to make them.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

Whispers became her weapons, so often caught in her web and brought to her on the winds at night.

She learned of the fear that lingered, of the confusion and the simmering discontent.

They were losing faith, they were losing confidence.

There were those that relished in the change her brave boy had undergone in order to survive.

He had become hard to keep from shaking apart.

He had become cold to keep from breaking down.

He had become bloodthirsty to keep from mourning the loss of his soul.

They muttered of the madness of wolves, but they followed him still, with their swords sharp and their minds clear.

They feared what would happen to them if they turned for home and left him.

The young wolf had become too much an animal, too much the direwolf he rode into battle beside.

They loved him as they feared him, and perhaps that was enough.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

The shroud of grief and rage was torn from their heads on a night of full moon and heavy rain.

She was a ghost as she moved through their camp, through mist and downpour atop a beast of frosted fur and frozen eyes.

They watched her, whispers caught in their throats and eyes wide to see the full of her.

The whispers started and spread as wildfire, from mouth to ear and onward.

She woke to the sounds of them, to the sounds of ghosts in the fog and frozen gods come south to find them and lead them home or into death.

She followed them, into the rain and into the camp, and followed them faster when cries ran out and howls took to the moon.

There were no words for what she felt when she laid eyes upon the mistress of grey stones and northern snows.

They all spoke as Northmen did, in hushed voices as if the gods themselves would smite any who were not sufficiently cowed by their legend.

They saw her, a ghost risen to walk beside them with skin of snow and eyes of blue stars.

But she, with tears swelling in her eyes and an ache blooming in her chest, saw only her beautiful Rowana.

She had no time to go to her, no time to take her from her shaky perch atop her direwolf and into her arms.

She had no time to hold her so, so tightly and weep with relief into her hair of black and night hidden ruby.

She had no time as it was then her brave wolf found them.

He came in his furs, his eyes gone mad with his fire and his hatred; he walked with his direwolf at his side, his beast gone just as savage and larger than they all thought he should be.

Had Grey Wind grown so big for any other reason than to bolster the terrifying image pressed upon all that looked upon him?

It mattered little why.

It mattered little.

King and king’s beast paused only moments, eyes gone dark with fury now turned wide with disbelief, with confusion.

She thought she saw fear, but it was gone before she could tell, gone in their rush to be closer, to know for sure.

The men knew better than to say anything, knew better than to speak out or interrupt.

She watched, with a sob growing in the cage of her chest, as her brave boy pulled her beautiful girl from her perch and straight into his arms to hold.

He cradled her as if she were made of glass, as if she would shatter into shards within his grasp or turn to the mists she had ridden in on.

He held her, with his arms held tight about her and his face lost in the long lengths of her dark hair, as if he feared she was only in his head, as if he were dreaming some cruel dream, as if he himself would turn to so much smoke upon the winds.

He held her, and then he took her pale face into his hands and kissed her there before his men, before his lords, before his gods and all the others.

The anger and the fear and the pain slipped from his shoulders, slipped as a wisp from his spine as he slackened into her and took to drowning in the grief he’d shut away.

She soothed him, then, with gentle hands and gentler words whispered against his lips.

Their wolves sat close to them, close to each other, and were as if they were not the size of horses grown but pups once again playing in the courtyards of Winterfell.

They all watched, silent spectres in the mists, as their king found himself again, as if waking from a nightmare that had kept him pinned and screaming for morning.

They all watched, and they all stared, when the king finally saw what they had seen.

His sister was returned to him, not torn to pieces by sea salt and sea beasts and left to bleed beneath grey stones and northern snows.

His sister was returned to him, but she was not unchanged.

She watched, with tears kissing rain atop her sharp cheeks, as her brave boy, her auburn-haired wolf, dropped to his knees before the beautiful Rowana, his once lost queen, his fated, and rested his brow atop the heavy swell of life between them.

Alive, in more ways than one.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

She returned to them in the mist and the storm, and she did so as the pains of life came to her.

It was not an easy thing to watch, her little girl torn low by a woman’s pain, a woman’s war.

She felt removed from herself, returned to a time when the walls of her once home had sheltered her and held within its stone walls the cries of her fated twins.

Was time repeating itself?

Was it a dream?

The pinch of nails in her palm told her that no, it was not a dream at all.

She knew pride then, pride in her twins, her survivors, her wolves.

Her beautiful Rowana was so focused, so strong; her eyes were clear and her brows pinched as she kept her screams within her chest, her fear and her pain hidden behind a stone wall of determination not to fall, not to fail, not to be lost in a war only she could wage.

And her Robb, her brave boy, her first born, with his auburn hair and his eyes like the midday sky; he snarled at the nurse who told him to leave, took to his queens’ side and remained there with his shoulders broad and his eyes filled with a swirl of emotions she could not name.

Hours they remained there, inside his chambers with candles burning bright and the storm raging above them.

Was it the same storm that had waged over head when they themselves were born?

Were the gods waiting, impatient to see their chosen bring into their world a child to follow them, to champion their cause and their north?

She stroked her daughter’s hair from her brow and smiled as the pain grew and died, grew and died.

It would not be long, she knew.

She thought there should be fear inside of her but found none; no fear, no worry, no gnawing pit inside her belly telling her that this war might be lost, that the daughter returned to her might leave her for true.

There was no such feeling, no such concern; there was only peace and an understanding that the gods, old or new or both, had brought her to them that she might survive this.

And survive she would.

Despite the pain, despite the blood, she would survive, she would go on.

She watched then, after hours of waiting and aching and wondering, as breath was sucked into the lungs of a newborn babe.

The nurse, cowed by the words and looks of the ones she had thought to speak familiarly with, wiped blood and fluid from rapidly pinkening flesh on her way to the king’s side.

She spoke no words as she handed the babe over, her eyes downcast and her hands returning to fidget at her apron strings.

She wondered then, with her eyes turning to fire, if the nurse had hoped to be in her daughter’s place, or if she had seen something that had shaken her, had left her worried for some hidden reason.

Her thoughts were gone from her mind when her brave boy choked back a sob, a smile finally, _finally_ , taking root upon his handsome face.

Gone was the last of his rage, his hatred; gone was the monster he had made himself into in order to survive a loss that was a lie.

He looked so big with his tiny bundle pressed close to his chest and held tightly in his arms.

There were tears in his blue, blue eyes; tears of suppressed grief and tears of hope.

And when he looked up, when he turned those bright sky eyes on his sister, there was so much love she had to turn away.

Another moment, she knew, that she was not meant to witness.

And then he moved closer, down, and slipped their child into the arms of the expectant and tired mother.

There was pride then, so much pride he shone with it, and a smugness that made her insides bubble and warm with mirth.

She turned her eyes to her daughter, to her first grandchild, and laughed for the first time in longer than she cared to remember.

It was a night of wars and storms when little Jon Stark was brought silent as his namesake into their world.

She thought it a fitting name, for he was born with shadows in his hair, the north in his eyes and the blood of wolves in his veins.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

The lords were confused enough not to question it when their king stood before them and gave crown and title to the one they knew to be his twin.

They watched, eyes wide and words clogged in their throats, as the young wolf grinned and solidified his claim of the north with queen and wife and a son who stared with eyes gone to ice and full of an impossible knowledge for one so new into their world.

She took to his side, bade them listen to her truths as she spoke of words before heart tree, cloak atop maiden shoulders, smiles and kisses and the looks shared over their evening meal.

She spoke of the marriage chamber, of boy turned to man, of girl grown to woman and the moments they had shared before and then and after.

She spoke of fated words hidden by hairline and locks, placed by the gods, old or new or both, to bind them and keep them to their path.

There was silence then, enough to smother the feast hall of her childhood home.

And then there was chaos.

Their voices rose in a whipping wave, washed over the room and the crowd and drowned all in its wake.

So many lords screaming their confusion, their rage, that no single lord made sense, no single lord could be heard.

It was a bear who silenced them, a mother with eyes bright and full of condemnation for those who fell into squabbling like small and foolish children.

She snarled in their faces, cut down their words and their protests and their pride.

They fell beneath her onslaught, cowed and soundly scolded, and then they thought.

It was the Greatjon who spoke then, as he had that fateful night so many moons ago.

Once he had sworn fealty, had raised his sword and bent his knee and now was no different.

He called out to his king, and with a grin gone half mad, called out to his queen and to the prince of grey stones and northern snows.

They followed then, proud men turned to sheep before the wolves of Winterfell.

Riverrun echoed and shook with the cries of Northmen bowing to their royals, but with the shouts of fealty and joy came too the whispers of betrayal.

Whispers were her weapons, but they were gone from her sides that night of promises made and oaths sworn.

She could not have known the twist to their fates, of blades sharpened in the dark and the smiles of cunning old men.

She could not have known of the promise of grey stones and northern snows given by golden lions.

She should have.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

There was an anger growing in her belly beside the seed of doubt and suspicion.

They had won many battles since copper crown of wolves and blue stars was placed upon the brow of the beautiful Rowana Stark.

Word had spread of little Jon Stark’s birth; had she not felt torn for smiling over the letter sent south by their gone champion?

Jon Snow longed to meet his nephew, his namesake, his hope.

The shock had faded of twins gone before heart tree and old gods, of words said and beds shared.

The lords cared not a whit anymore, but openly embraced fates design as king and queen and the little wolf prince were kind and fair and fierce beside.

But resentment lingered, festered, and she did not see it growing in the shadows.

Not even when the first of the lies entered her webs.

Her brother, foolish but true, was being forced to marry down, to take into his bed a wife of towers and trident streams.

He fought it, hated it, but fell into the snare with a sigh and a pitiful hope that maybe, just maybe, his bride would not be so terribly ugly.

Her young wolf had not been pleased with having to renegotiate the loyalty of a man he had not slighted, but he did what was expected and soothed the ruffled feathers of a cunning old man.

It was a mistake, one they neither saw nor expected.

They made for twin towers, for wide rivers and lesser lords.

There was silent comfort in leaving their son behind, still so small and better left to the safety of the Blackfish and the great wolf of frosted fur and frozen eyes.

Hoarfrost protected and guarded, and with time, would became more than loaned shield and tooth to the babe turned future king.

 

 

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

 

 

No one had expected it, that old Walder Frey would have a daughter as pretty as a flower turned up to the morning sun.

Her brother had smiled as a fool for all the moments they shared company, and had gone with a laugh to his marriage bed.

It was a nice enough wedding, she supposed, but there was something she could not name eating at her belly, coiling like vipers in the cage of her chest and squeezing so, so tightly about her heart.

She watched them, their few lords and ladies allowed into the main feast hall, as they drank and sang and spoke of all the silly things drunken lords and ladies did.

She watched them, her beautiful Rowana and her brave Robb, as they spoke in hushed tones and shared their breaths.

There were more moments then, where she felt an intruder to their peace, a voyeur to their closeness, and turned to give them what little privacy she could.

Their whispers were their own, and she was thankful for it.

Yet still, she knew from the brief looks she spared them, that their love was like a flame in the dark and so drew to it the attention of moths.

She did not like the way the cunning old man leered from his high table, his beady eyes alight with an emotion she could not name above a smile that was too sharp, too dark, too wrong.

It unsettled her and she could not name why.

The music changed, from something one could tap their toes to and smile through, to something that sounded of mourning and warning.

She knew it, yet could not name why or from where.

There was such life in that great hall of lesser lords and dower maidens.

There was laughter in the hearts of their men, light in their eyes as they danced and sang songs that did not fit with the music.

They were lost in their cups, lost to the world about them.

Her eyes turned to her wolves, to her twins, to the king and queen they had become; she did not see them as grown but again as the stumbling tots that waved wooden swords and snuggled into their furs with the bastard her husband had shamed her with.

She longed for him then, that bastard boy she had never loved.

Would he see what she saw?

Would he hear what she heard?

Would he know?

They were, as they always had been as children, lost in their own world, lost in their own selves; their eyes were locked, their whispers lost to even those stood so, so close to them.

Did they have their own language, she wondered, and thought it possible.

Between them, their fingers were clasped, clutched about the others and held as a tether.

Flame glinted off of the blue star of her copper crown, and lit the curls of her son’s hair.

The music faded, drew her away from her memories, from her visions of times gone by, of moments lost to the past.

She sat, and she waited, and she listened.

And then she shouted.

Her whispers had failed her, had left her web and turned against her.

Leech and cunning old man smiled both as bolts flew and struck true.

Blood flowed as easily as the wine, and Northmen fought with hands and feet, with knives pulled from atop tables and bones snatched up in desperation.

She watched, as young wolf crumbled, as he dragged himself to where his queen was clutching desperately at her side as blood seeped to stain her pretty grey gown red.

There was chaos, and then, slowly, there was silence.

She felt a part from her body, torn away to watch over the room as she held blade to throat and threatened with a voice gone mad with rage and fear and grief.

She had known grief, and was its mistress once more.

The cunning old lord laughed and postured, spoke down to and sneered, and watched on in delight as her brave boy, her auburn-haired wolf, rose to say his piece, to bid an end to this madness.

He offered himself up, the crown atop his brow, the blood within his veins, if only it would save his queen, his sister, his love.

She wept for him, for the desperation in his eyes, the fear, and then she shouted out for him when blade and betrayal choked his breath and his pleas and sunk him to the floor with a heart that now wept as surely as she herself did.

All sound was gone then but for the scream that echoed through that stone hall of blood and deceit.

She watched, with her strength leaving her, as her beautiful Rowana slipped across stone and rug, crawled over bodies fallen and chairs toppled.

There was blood stained on her hands and on her lips, and the blue stars of her eyes were twinkling with tears that held and pooled and waited and then spilled freely when finally, _finally_ , she curled about her fallen love.

She took him to her lap, cradled his head atop her stained gown and stroked her stained fingers through his hair until the curls were no longer red from flame but from the blood of wolves.

_Robb._

_Robb, please._

He did not answer, he could not; he did no more than stare up at her with his blue, blue eyes gone vacant of life and light.

She choked.

She pressed her fingers to his chest, to the blood that poured forth from the heart she’d known as her own.

_Robb?_

She watched, from where she stood with a blade to her hostage’s throat, as her daughter, her beautiful Rowana, took up his hand and broke into so many shards of ice.

Her wails sent shivers down the spines of all who heard them.

They hesitated, shuffled on their feet and averted their eyes as the wolf queen howled.

They saw nothing of the marks hidden beneath hairline and locks, saw nothing as names faded and bled away as surely as northern blood did.

And then her howls were ended by a blade that kissed and bit and wept sluggishly with what was left in her veins.

Towers and trident streams knew the taste of northern blood that night.

She watched them, with all the feeling left to her fading as her babies, her little wolves, her little twins, slipped away from her.

She had only one comfort then; that they had gone together, hand in hand and so, so close.

Why had this happened?

Were the gods so cruel as to give them nought but pain and loss?

Had she made a mistake somewhere?

Were the marks hidden by hairline and locks meant as a warning and nothing more?

Were her twins, her Robb and Rowana, fated all along to fall, or had she done something to make it so?

Perhaps this was only one path they could have taken, a twist in the road she had pushed them down without knowing.

Would that she could know.

Would that she could change it.

Had she been wrong to keep her babies together?

Had she been wrong all those long moons ago to fight to keep them with her, to keep just a few of her wolves at home lest the stag take them all into the southern fires?

Had she known this was the price to pay for her choices, she might have let the king have his wish.

Perhaps, were the gods kind, she would have that choice to make again, in another life.

But now, with her eyes locked on the blood that dripped from her daughter’s throat to mingle with that which seeped from her son’s heart, she accepted that she had failed.

They were gone from her, and as she felt the first snick of a blade at her own throat, she accepted her own fate.

For she was gone too.


End file.
